YHWH as ‘Yahu’ in a winged ‘throne chariot,’ holding a bird. Coin from Gaza, 4th century BCE.) For a further discussion, see Gosta W. Ahlstrom’s ‘The Persian Period: The History of Ancient Palestine.’ Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993/1994; p. 898.
Today’s inspirational Bible quote: “He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind…”
Who can see the solar and meteorological imagery here?
It is obvious that the biblical god Yahweh is a combination of numerous Sumero-Semitic and Egyptian deities and godly attributes. The creators of this tribal god incorporated as many such characteristics as possible from around the known world of the time. They had much to draw from, with a long and rich tradition of deities permeating the Levant, Fertile Crescent and North Africa, as well as Greece, Persia, India and Arabia.
One of the most obvious attempts at subordinating all these other gods and goddesses under Yahweh is the overkill of the 10 plagues in the Exodus myth. This tale is blatantly unhistorical, with one desolation after another, when there would be practically no one left after the first couple of plagues.
As I demonstrate in Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Hebrew Israelite, the biblical scribes gathered together these many plague narratives from the myths of earlier eras and cultures, specifically those of various pestilence deities such as Nergal and Seth. In order to make Yahweh more powerful than either of these two very well-known pestilence gods, the Bible’s writers heaped on the miraculous, God-sent plagues to the point of absurdity!
Yes, we get it – your God is bigger and better than everyone else’s.
Further Reading
Did Moses Exist?
The Astrotheology of the Ancients
Astrotheology of the Ancients (forum)
Jesus (and Yahweh) as the Sun throughout History
The biblical Yahweh was a storm and pestilence deity, based on older Semitic and Egyptian gods http://t.co/nHaYah7hvI #bible #yahweh
— Religion and History (@AcharyaS) December 11, 2013
